Kaine had to change his position immediately after being chosen as Clinton’s VP pick. This is what happens when people organize and make their voices heard. This is the power of the progressive movement.

This is the new Democratic party — recognizing reality, and starting to listen to the voices of working people again. (Starting to, but certainly not all the way there yet.) Clinton and Kaine recognize the political necessity of opposing the agreement, but have not yet acknowledged how harmful “free trade” agreements generally are to democracy. The core idea of these agreements is that countries surrender their sovereign power to impose tariffs and other trade limitations, when determined to be in their own national interest. In other words, they agree to place the interests of corporations above the wider interests of the nation-at-large and their people.

Credibility Against Trump

Kaine’s shift from supporting TPP helps Clinton’s credibility on the issue. Donald Trump is running as a self-described “free-trader” who happens to oppose TPP. He says Clinton is only “pretending” to oppose TPP. It is important for Clinton that Kaine also voices opposition to TPP. Unfortunately she continues to defer to President Obama’s continuing support for TPP, not yet calling on Obama to withdraw the agreement from consideration by Congress.

About Dave Johnson

Dave has more than 20 years of technology industry experience. His earlier career included technical positions, including video game design at Atari and Imagic. He was a pioneer in design and development of productivity and educational applications of personal computers. More recently he helped co-found a company developing desktop systems to validate carbon trading in the US.